Survivor

Destiny's Child: Beyonce, Kelly, Michelle.

Producers: Beyonce Knowles, Walter Afanasieff.

Engineers include: Brian Springer, James Hoover, Dan Workman.

"Survivor" won the 2002 Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal.

The enhanced Australian edition includes three additional tracks and a video.

CD contains 3 bonus tracks.

This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.

The '70s had Helen Reddy declaring "I am Woman" and Gloria Gaynor vowing "I Will Survive." Two-and-a-half decades down the road, female empowerment is finding its pop music voice in the self-empowerment anthems of Destiny's Child. On SURVIVOR, the pop-R&B trio uses such songs as "Independent Women Part I" (previously heard on the CHARLIE'S ANGELS soundtrack) and the title tune as vehicles for their own statements of gender independence. Seldom has the women's-lib aesthetic been applied to grooves this sultry.

Despite all the social statements, DC isn't above diving into more salacious waters, like "Bootylicious," where the ladies assess their own desirability over a sample from Stevie Nicks's '80s hit "Edge of Seventeen." On "Nasty Girls," trashy women receive a verbal dressing-down, but more spiritual matters are addressed in the closing "Gospel Medley," which finds Destiny's Child offering harmonious thanks to the Lord.

What the critics say...

Rolling Stone (5/10/01, pp.83-4) - 3.5 stars out of 5 - "...Fluid R&B harmonies, exotic techno beats and more floss than the American Dental Association....SURVIVOR confirms their reign as the princesses of pop....packed with enough hits to keep the show rolling."
Spin (7/01, pp.125-6) - 9 out of 10 - "...Every gesture dances along [with a] platinum pop irreconcilability....Relentlessly inventive in its recombinations. The beats are just a tinge twisted for teen pop....[They] are the soul of the new machine..."
Entertainment Weekly (5/11/01, pp.77-8) - "...They are in the take-charge phase of their career...there is much musical meat on [the album's] bones....but from leader Beyonce Knowles' creative input to the dominance of her Mariah-style trills, SURVIVOR is very much her work..." - Rating: B+
Q (7/01, p.108) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Sassy..."
Vibe (6/01, pp.151-2) - 3 discs out of 5 - "...Beyonce's always been a capable singer, and she's grown even more so on SURVIVOR....the album concerns itself with what the girls have always been about: making it, shaking it, and heartbreaking it..."
Mojo (Publisher) (6/01, p.116) - "...An impeccable fusion of classic soul virtues withmachine-tooled modernity..."
NME (Magazine) (12/29/01, p.59) - Ranked #15 in NME's 50 "Albums Of the Year 2001".